Putin instructed to allocate ₽300 billion in 2025 for high-speed railway to St. Petersburg

In 2025, the Russian government will allocate at least 300 billion rubles from the National Welfare Fund to provide loans for the construction of the Moscow-St. Petersburg high-speed highway. Corresponding order from President Vladimir Putin published on the Kremlin website.

In addition, the President instructed the government to ensure the provision of a capital grant from the federal budget in the amount of more than 28 billion rubles in 2024-2028 for the purchase of land plots for the construction of high-speed line transport infrastructure facilities.

In addition, it is planned to provide subsidies from the federal budget in the amount of about 300 billion rubles.

It follows from the president’s instructions that the construction of the high-speed railway will also be financed from the regional budgets. In particular, Moscow will allocate at least 150 billion rubles, St. Petersburg – 30 billion rubles, Moscow region – 20 billion rubles, Leningrad region – at least 10 billion rubles, Novgorod region – six billion, and Tver region – five billion rubles.

The instructions must be completed by July 1, 2024. Then the cost of travel and baggage will be determined.

The idea of ​​a high-speed highway from Moscow to St. Petersburg has been discussed since the times of the USSR. Russian Railways included this project in the program for organizing high-speed and high-speed rail services in Russia in 2015.

At that time, Russian Railways estimated the cost of the project at 984 billion rubles. In 2023, according to Russian Railways, the total cost of construction of the highway increased to one trillion 700 billion rubles.

Putin launched the construction of the high-speed railway on March 14, the launch of traffic is scheduled for 2028. According to Transport Minister Vitaly Savelyev, travel between the two cities will take 2 hours and 15 minutes. Currently, high-speed Sapsan trains run between Moscow and St. Petersburg; their travel time averages about four hours.

“Sapsan” is the fastest train operated in Russia. This is a model of the German Siemens Velaro adapted for the Russian market. Its speed is up to 300 km/h. For a high-speed railway, the speed must be up to 400 km/h; such trains are not produced or purchased in Russia.